Folklore is the body of verbal expressive culture, including tales, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs current among a particular population, comprising the oral tradition of that culture, subculture, or group. The academic and usually ethnographic study of folklore is known as folkloristics.

History

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The concept of folklore developed as part of the 19th century ideology of romantic nationalism, leading to the reshaping of oral traditions to serve modern ideological goals; only in the 20th century did ethnographers begin to attempt to record folklore without overt political goals. The Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm, collected orally transmitted German tales and published the first series as Kinder- und Hausmärchen ("Children's and Household Tales") in 1812.

The term was coined in 1846 by an Englishman, William Thoms, who wanted to use an Anglo-Saxon term for what was then called "popular antiquities." Johann Gottfried von Herder first advocated the deliberate recording and preservation of folklore to document the authentic spirit, tradition, and identity of the German people; the belief that there can be such authenticity is one of the tenets of the romantic nationalism which Herder developed. The definition most widely accepted by current scholars of the field is "artistic communication in small groups," coined by Dan Ben-Amos a scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, and the term, and the associated field of study, now include non-verbal art forms and customary practices.

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Myths and Folktales - Twitter Search

Neat folktales and myths about trees for kids, families, and adults: http://t.co/b1l2d5qh #Tree Week #FASSA
PlanetFassa (Planet Fassa) Tue, 15 May 2012 21:05:36 -0000
Neat folktales and myths about trees for kids, families, and adults: http://t.co/b1l2d5qh #Tree Week #FASSA
Neat folktales and myths about trees for kids, families, and adults: http://t.co/tQnvR6FM #Tree Week #FASSA #Stories
S_Moooo (Shannon Guernsey) Tue, 15 May 2012 16:50:25 -0000
Neat folktales and myths about trees for kids, families, and adults: http://t.co/tQnvR6FM #Tree Week #FASSA #Stories
World music, Middle Eastern, Asian and Indian wisdom tales, folktales and myths of other cultures, folk songs ...
qa_interview (QA INTERVIEW) Sat, 12 May 2012 08:38:24 -0000
World music, Middle Eastern, Asian and Indian wisdom tales, folktales and myths of other cultures, folk songs ...
Superstitions , folktales and myths ! ««« LOVE 'EM SHIID !
Bambiie_In_Time (Bι̊η̵ƞcη̵ Bέƨƨ) Fri, 11 May 2012 11:42:31 -0000
Superstitions , folktales and myths ! ««« LOVE 'EM SHIID !
Filipino Myths and Folktales – The Pineapple, The Coconut and The Apple http://t.co/lxklRYfn via @islandmeetscity
IslandMeetsCity (Lariana) Fri, 11 May 2012 04:33:27 -0000
Filipino Myths and Folktales – The Pineapple, The Coconut and The Apple http://t.co/lxklRYfn via @islandmeetscity
http://t.co/XzIjB97E Jacque, this is so true. Storytelling has taken many forms, from fairy tales to myths to folktales, legends and...
CharityClairity (Claire Axelrad) Tue, 08 May 2012 04:53:27 -0000
http://t.co/XzIjB97E Jacque, this is so true. Storytelling has taken many forms, from fairy tales to myths to folktales, legends and...

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